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Topic: Rifle Barrel (Read 11153 times)

Hi Guys,I am fairly new to turning so hopefully somebody can help me with this query.How do I hold a tapered barrel from a 10/22 Ruger in the chuck so that I can shorten it and re-crown it?The barrel will go through the head of the lathe no problem.The barrel is blued so obviosly I don't want to damage the finish.I look forward to some solutions to this problem.CheersMike

An armorer friend of mine (who, sadly, passed away a couple of weeks ago) made a tapered bushing to fit the barrel taper at the appropriate spot. He would split that lengthwise, insert the barrel, and then dial it in with a 4-jaw chuck. As he reworked both M24 and various .50 calibre sniper's rifles for the U.S. military, I would assume that this was sufficiently accurate.

Word of warning, when doing any barrel work it's always worthwhile indicating off the bore to ensure that everything is concentric. It's not uncommon to find barrel blanks with off-centre bores, the same applies to commercial barrels.

Brass shims can be used to avoid marring the barrel. To support the barrel further out you may well need a steady rest. For barrel work I recommend adding bearings to the fingers of the steady rest. These have lest likelihood of marring your barrel finish and are actually very pleasant to work with.

Abit late also.For those where you cannot or dont want to remove barrel from receiver i usually turn a collar that fits in headstock providing support.Ideally 4 jaw independant but bear in mind it may be true to the bore ie receiver end off centre in head stock.Together with this if doing a few soft jaws bored with a taper!

If its only one for yourself might get away with 3 jaw self centring, wrap tape equally around the barrel and check for runout off the bore. Can pack each jaw to centre if need be.Quite correct dont assume o/d is true many are not especially some Rugers.

My first post other than introduction but I have some experience in this area. There are several way to do this and thankfully these barrels cut nice and easy. A spider works well as stated earlier. Depending on where you are chucking the barrel the taper may not be much and you could try some brass shim stock between the chuck jaws and barrel, a pin gauge to indicate off the bore would be nice. I would also fab an aluminum bushing or spider for the other end sticking out of the lathe too or else it will whip around a lot.

I typically rough cut the barrel outside the lathe (hacksaw) and draw file close so i only have to do minimal truing in the lathe. I have found these barrels to run with the bore pretty consistently.

While you are working on the barrel you can really improve the accuracy very easily. Typically Ruger 1022 barrels have far too long a throat or leade for good accuracy. In your lathe face the breach face back .100 thou and the corresponding shoulder the same amount. make a shim to take up the difference so the original barrel locking v block will still work. You will also need to recut the extractor groove, easy to do with a small file just measure the original before you make the breach face cut to see how to restore it. A very light chamfer around the chamber too as the original. You will be rewarded with near match barrel performance from a stock looking barrel. I've built some "sleepers" that will embarrass rifles with high priced match barrels. I also recut the crown.